Daydreaming in a Time of Panic | Leslie McGrath

So you have found me heartsick, curled under
the throw someone’s grandmother crocheted
and that I bought at Goodwill because I’m mindful and adjunct.
I’m not doing nothing here. I’m calculating the angle
of light that casts a long and chilling shadow
onto the largest screen on earth: millions of turned backs
of tweeters, texters, and trolls hell-bent
over devices designed to connect but which only sift
self from self and will continue to do so until
someone with a working moral compass, someone
who senses the hypnotic sleep of history coming round
and round again writes ALARM! ALARM!
gigantic and trance-piercing on the wind no blanket
will protect me from. These hands are busy
with my rosary of hurts, but if they weren’t!
What would I become? Bell that warns the world.
What have I become? Talking mynah bird.